Spc. Katherine Deskins (L) of the Nevada Army National Guard administers a Modern COVID-19 vaccination to the Clark County Fire Department Captain, Captain Jasmine Ghazinour, on the first day of the Clark County pilot vaccination program at the Cashman Center in January 14, 2021 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ethan Miller | Getty Images
President-elect Joe Biden plans to use FEMA and the National Guard to build coronavirus vaccine clinics in the United States, according to new details from his Covid-19 vaccination plan released by his transition team on Friday.
The Biden administration will also “make an initial leap” in efforts to make vaccines available at local pharmacies in the United States, which should ensure that Americans have access to doses in facilities just miles from their homes, according to the plan.
“The thing is, the more people we vaccinate, the faster we do it, the sooner we can save lives and put this pandemic back and go back to our lives and loved ones,” said Biden in a speech in Wilmington, Delaware, Thursday night. “We are not going to get out of this overnight and we cannot do this as a separate nation.”
Drugstore and pharmacy chains should assume a more important role in distributing the vaccine once the government expands access to more people. But slower-than-expected implementation has frustrated drugstore chains. The National Association of Chain Drug Stores asked the federal government earlier this week to allow states to send more doses directly to pharmacies, just as they do with hospitals and health departments.
The group estimated that the country’s retail pharmacies could administer at least 100 million doses of vaccines each month, which would exceed the promise of the new administration of 100 million injections in 100 days.
The Biden government said that current vaccination efforts are not enough to vaccinate the vast majority of the United States quickly and equitably, adding: “We must ensure that those at the site have what they need to put vaccines in people’s arms. “.
The rate of vaccination in the United States is going much slower than the authorities expected. On Friday, at 6:00 am ET, more than 31.1 million doses of the vaccine were delivered in the United States, but just over 12.2 million injections were administered, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Diseases.
Meanwhile, cases are growing rapidly, with the United States registering at least 238,800 new cases of Covid-19 and at least 3,310 virus-related deaths each day, based on an average of seven days calculated by CNBC using data from Johns University Hopkins.
“We are still in a very dark winter,” Biden said during a speech on Friday. “Almost a year later, we are still far from returning to normal. The truth is this: things are going to get worse before it gets better,” he said. He called the launch of the vaccine in the United States a “failure”.
Under the plan, Biden will also invoke the Defense Production Act to “maximize the manufacture of vaccines and vaccine supplies for the country”.
Aides to the new president had already suggested that he would invoke the wartime production law, which allows the president to compel companies to prioritize manufacturing for national security, to increase vaccine production.
The plan says the law will increase the supply of necessary equipment that could cause bottlenecks in the launch of the vaccine if it were in short supply, including glass vials, syringes, corks and needles. It will also increase the ability to pack vaccines in bottles.
The Biden plan will also encourage states to open eligibility beyond health workers and residents and employees of long-term care facilities, and include essential frontline workers such as teachers, first responders, supermarket employees and anyone 65 years old or more.
The CDC released new guidelines on Tuesday that expanded the eligibility of the coronavirus vaccine for everyone aged 65 and over, as well as for those with comorbidities, such as diabetes. About 53 million Americans aged 65 and over and 110 million people aged 16 to 64 with comorbidities are now eligible to receive the vaccine if all states adopt the guidelines, according to the CDC.
“This does not mean that everyone in these groups will be vaccinated immediately, as the supply is not where it should be,” wrote the transition team. “But that means that, as vaccines become available, they will reach more people who need them.”
This is a developing story. Please check again for updates.